Authors in This Issue
- Authors in This Issue
S. Wesley Ariarajah (Methodist Church in Sri Lanka) holds a B.S. from Madras (India) Christian College; a B.D. from United Theological College, Bangalore; a Th.M. from Prince ton Theological Seminary; an M.Phil. from the University of London King’s College; and a Ph.D. (1987) from the University of London. Ordained in the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka, he served as a pastor, 1966–69 and 1978–81; lectured at the Theological College of Lanka, Pilimatalawa, Sri Lanka, 1969–71; and served the Sub-Unit on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths, World Council of Churches, in Geneva, first as the Programme Secretary for Christian-Hindu/Buddhist Relations, 1981–83, then as its director, 1983–91. He was Deputy General Secretary of the W.C.C., 1991–97, then became Senior Professor of Ecumenical Theology at Drew University School of Theology, Madison, NJ, where he was named Professor Emeritus in 2015. He serves on the board of the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey, Switzerland; on the advisory board of the European Project for Interreligious Learning, in Zurich; and on the editorial board of Interreligious Insight. The most recent of his ten books is Power, Politics, and Plurality: An Exploration of the Impact of Interfaith Dialogue on Christian Faith and Practice, a collection of his essays edited by Marshal Fernando (Colombo: Ecumenical Institute for Study and Dialogue, 2016). He has edited four books, contributed chapters to more than two dozen books, written dozens of articles for ecumenical and interfaith journals, and addressed and/or organized many conferences and other gatherings worldwide.
Mahinda Deegalle (Buddhist) has been Senior Lecturer, Study of Religions, Bath Spa University, Bath, U.K., since 2000. He has been a visiting lecturer or instructor at Cornell University and the University of Chicago in the U.S.; McGill University, Canada; and Buddhist and Pali University, Sri Lanka. His B.A. is from the University of Peradeniya; his Master of Theological Studies, Harvard University; and his Ph.D. in the history of religions (1995), from the University of Chicago, including research in Japan. Most recent of his eight books is Popularizing Buddhism (SUNY Press, 2006), and he has published numerous book chapters, journal and encyclopedia articles, and reviews. Since 2004, he has been Book Review Editor of Buddhist Studies Review. He has served as secretary of the World Buddhist Foundation, London, since 2001, and as an expert advisor to the Buddhist Federation of Norway.
Tikva Frymer-Kensky (1943–2006) (Jewish) was Professor of Hebrew Bible and the History of Judaism, University of Chicago Divinity School, with a dual appointment in the University of Chicago Law School at the time of her death. She had taught previously at Wayne State University, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Yale University, Ben Gurion University, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. In 2006, the Jewish Publication [End Page 193] Society published her Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism in its Scholar of Distinction series (the first woman and the youngest scholar to be included). She was committed to interreligious dialogue, as well as to bringing ancient texts into the present. She held a B.A. from City College of New York and both a master’s in Semitics and a Ph.D. (1977) in Assyriology and Sumerology from Yale University.
Rita Gross(1943–2015) (Tibetan Buddhist) was Professor Emerita, Comparative Studies in Religion, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where she taught from 1973 till retiring in 1998. Born Jewish, she took refuge with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and became a Tibetan Buddhist. Named head of the Women and Religion section of the American Academy of Religion in 1974, she received her Ph.D. in history of religions from the University of Chicago in 1973, with the first dissertation on women’s studies in religion. The most recent of her six books was Religious Diversity: What’s the Problem? Buddhist Advice for Flourishing with Religious Diversity (Cascade, 2014), and she co-edited an additional five volumes. From 2005, she was a senior teacher at Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche’s Lotus Garden Center in Virginia.
Rabia Terri Harris (Muslim) became staff chaplain of Stony Point (NY) Center in 2016, after serving as consulting...
